Monday, February 16, 2015

decentralized cloud - you know it makes sense. So youtube/google make a lot out of the amount of material that is uploaded every day. However, note that the usual zipf law of popularity (the very very very very very very long tail, where the vast vast vast majority of cats-falling-off-bicycle-videos are only ever viewed by .5 people) means that this stuff stays on 1 server, and never gets replicated (pushed) to caches.

So why upload it? Its personal - only you and your mum ever look at it.
Perhaps you are an aspiring pop star and its your video - so still, why upload it ? you only need to be _indexed_. Its far more efficient if you serve it yourself and you get to count how many people look at it directly, and from where, and get 100% of any advertising revenue (If you chose to host adverts too).